Recommendations much appreciated for turks and caicos

Good morning everyone! I am Jennifer Newly engaged!!! And am looking forward to a destination wedding! We are thinking Turks and Caicos. Did anyone get married there? My crowd is diverse and hope to have a bunch of children there as well. Did you get officially married before going? And how was the planning? Did you go through a travel agent or let people book on their own? This is all completely new to me as none of my close friends or relatives have done this. Any help is much appreciated! And how long did you let your guests know in advance? A more private question, did you find it less expensive to get married on an island? Weddings by me are running average $40,000 and we just can not afford that! Thanks so much everyone! Jen

Jenn, There's a tread for Beaches Turks & Caicos and it has tons of info! I'm getting married there next June and feel your pain. It is cheaper for us to get married there than to have a ceremony at home, but it's still not "cheap" per se. It's going to cost us about $20K vs $45+ and we will have less people. That grand total includes our travel arrangements, since we will stay there for our honeymoon as well. Feel free o ask any other questions and I will try to help. We are not getting married before hand, but I suppose you could. We will just do it all right there.

Congratulations on your engagement, it's so much fun, right? I am seven months into mine and still can't keep my eyes off my ring. I think you guys would be happy with Turks and Caicos, it is a gorgeous location and definitely family friendly. You really can't go wrong with the resorts there, they are all well maintained and have beautiful landscaping and pools and of course the perfect, calm beaches.

We are getting married in October and the island suits us perfectly. It is very laid back and not pushy at all. No one tried to sell us anything while we were there. The resorts, shops, wedding planner, everyone we interacted with had great customer service skills. We got all the information we asked for and never felt any pressure at all to buy, book or put a deposit on anything.

Part of our reason for booking is that we wanted our wedding to be the real thing- no visit to the courthouse necessary to legalize it. You have to be on the island 48 hours before filing the paperwork for a license but after that, it is all legal. We signed up with Nila Destinations and that is one of the many things they are handling for us. Nila also set up a site with contact information where our guests could use them to book hotels and activities. We put in links to our resort and some less expensive options around it to point guests in the right direction.

We started by running the destination idea by our immediate families. Knowing they were on board set me at ease about it. Honestly, as long as we have our families there I will be happy. Shortly after our engagement I sent out emails to extended family and close friends letting them know we were planning on an October-ish "toes in the sand" wedding and advised them to get their passports up to date. That way, even without details they could start planning. As soon as we had set the location and put a deposit down with Grace Bay Club we sent out save the dates so they could go ahead with research and booking. We included our web site info where guests could get tons of info and answers to their many possible questions. I think it is important to give them as much time as possible to plan. We are in the process of ordering invitations now and will set the RSVP date 2 months before the wedding.

I have at least 4 kids coming, it is during the school year so I don't know how many others might make it. The kids are already practicing their swimming and snorkeling, they are so excited! Most of our close friends with kids seem to be making this a getaway for the grown ups. I knew Beaches would be out of the price range for many of my guests so never gave that serious consideration. I think an all inclusive would take a lot of the guesswork out of things but that just wasn't for us. We did look at the Veranda, the other all inclusive in Provo but we didn't feel that it offered much more for the money than other resorts.

I do think (hope!) that we will spend less money on the wedding itself by having a destination. At the very least, our guest list will be much smaller so that will save some. My fiance and I should sit down and come up with some real figures but I feel like we are keeping things in the 10-15k range. That does not include accommodations. I could easily spend much, much more if I went all out on flowers, photography and activities for our guests. So far we are keeping things pretty conservative.

When are you planning to get married and are you considering any other locations? Best of luck to you!